


Drugs Are For Vampires Who Can't Handle Reality

by Gryphonrhi



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-27
Updated: 2010-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:26:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryphonrhi/pseuds/Gryphonrhi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about an immortal who has his own priorities, such as keeping idiot vampires from starting witch hunts. Hunting one immortal creature might find several, however.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drugs Are For Vampires Who Can't Handle Reality

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Rysher: Davis/Panzer owns the concept of immortality, if none of these characters. This is not a crossover -- I don't cross comic books. However, just to be safe... Marvel Comics, to the best of my knowledge, owns Blade. Not me. Really. And that may be the end of the disclaimers, amazingly.  
> Rated: PG-13 for a not particularly graphic death. This plot bunny free to a good home.

He'd roared in on a motorcycle, wearing a black leather coat and rat-stomper boots, and managed to make swinging off the bike, stomping the kickstand down, and spinning to face the alley into one smooth move. That actually impressed the fledgling more than the stranger's looks. Long, lean, black, and mean -- the infant vampire even made some crack at the time about, "What, big man thinks he's Blade or somethin'?"

Those flat, unfriendly eyes looked contemptuous even across the dark alley as the man stated, "No."

"No what, motherfucker?"

"No, I don't think I'm Blade." He moved forward, smiling grimly in the shadows as he added, "But I do think you're a vampire. Not exactly competent, but a vampire."

"The fuck--" The vampire paused too long as the contempt in those words sank through the drug-laced blood in his veins. In that long instant, the other man was on him, four quick strides down the muck-laden alley as one hand came up wielding a sword.

The vampire had chosen his most recent victim solely for the scent of marijuana that surrounded her. Even a human could have smelled it, and to him it meant a slowing of the world to something he could stand, mixed with that succulent liquid he needed so badly. The tang of her fear had made it irresistible, as always. Now he had to speed back up from his lovely blood and drug mellowness as he tried not to trip over her corpse, all the while wondering what in hell some bastard was doing in downtown Detroit with a sword.

The maniac's blade carved light through the night air, burned a line of pain through his marijuana-haze, and left a nearly-bloodless gash deep in the vampire's thigh. The pain seared most of the drug out of his mind and he found himself backhanding his crazy attacker much harder than he'd intended. The man hit the torn side of a trash bin, and rusted metal slid through denim jeans as if there were nothing there.

Blood fountained into the air, a dark arterial spray that smelled heavenly... and slowed almost immediately. The vampire stared at that, too, shocked beyond anything the marijuana could buffer for him. "What the fuck?" As he watched, miniature lightnings straight out of a bad B-movie stitched across the wound, slid under the fabric, and left blood-smeared, gleaming, intact skin behind.

"Jesus," he whispered, forgetting just how inappropriate it was for him to call on that name, "what are you? You should be dead."

"So should you," the black man pointed out calmly as he stalked back across the alley, wounded leg almost giving under him on the first stride but apparently solid again by the third.

The vampire cowered back, completely forgetting he could fly, or, in all probability, tear the man limb from limb. "What are you?"

"Alive," the not-quite-mortal answered, and his sword swung up to lay against the vampire's throat. The undead couldn't tell which was colder: his skin, the blade, or the man's voice. "Now. This is simple. I understand you have to drink to stay... whatever you are. But you're stupid. You're killing -- conspicuously. Going to stop?"

The drugs and his belief in his own immortality pulled the answer out; the perpetual teen-ager snarled, fangs bared. "I'm a vampire, fuckhead! We kill sheep, and that's al--"

~*~*~*~*~*~

  
The sword rasped against the bricks, and the vampire's head thumped dully as it hit the ground with a sound like a immature cantaloupe that hadn't quite decided to split open. A wooden stake slammed into the vampire's chest before he could slide to the ground, and ash powdered up, leaving behind only filthy jeans and tennis shoes, and an army camo jacket. The vampire hunter huffed a tired breath that didn't have enough enthusiasm to be a sigh, then used the same stake through the detached head and watched it fade to powder as well.

He dropped the stake back into his coat pocket almost absently. "I'm getting too old for this shit," he muttered to himself, then grinned in a quick flash of teeth. "Or not."

"That might not be a problem." Time had crystallized that voice, etching certainty and viciousness into the timbre the way insects froze in amber.

The vampire hunter never turned around, only cleaned his scimitar on an old handkerchief produced from his coat, then set that cloth on fire with a cheap plastic cigarette lighter and dropped it to the filthy ground. "Do we have a problem?"

"You killed a vampire." The second voice held no more emotion than the first, although the tone was that of an eternally young man who had seen and learned things that no one so young should face.

"Damn right I did. I killed a fucked-up idiot who was leaving a trail of corpses down here." Now the lean black man did turn around to appraise the vampires who had landed behind him.

The woman had probably been lovely when she was mortal, but years of darkness had left red-gold skin sallow against the blue-black waterfall of her hair. She wore fine suede like beaded buckskin and had wrapped crimson cut-velvet around her forehead to hold back that black hair. The overall effect was startlingly anachronistic despite the modern fabrics. The immortal fought down the temptation to ask what tribe had once claimed her and studied her companion just as silently.

The boy might have been seventeen when someone had closed his eyes to the day; he'd never pass for eighteen anywhere now. He'd been a Slav from the looks of him, all high cheekbones and cowlicked sandy-blond hair over brilliant blue eyes. From the beginning promise of muscle across the once-growing frame, the black immortal suspected he'd been brought over as a boy-toy... and the vampires had found out too late about a very strong will.

"You've looked your fill," the woman stated, bringing his attention back to the conversation. "You're a swordsman."

The immortal nodded calmly without ever sheathing his scimitar... but he hadn't reached for his stake yet, either. "You noticed."

"You reek of lightning and years," she said in that same level voice, dark brown eyes focused on him with the intent, unwavering stare of a predator.

"And you killed a vampire," the boy added. Menace rippled through his voice like the current and riptides running through a treacherous river. "That's against the rules."

The black man only raised his eyebrow, a sarcasm that he knew would be noticed. "Do tell. I don't know that rule, little boy. What I do know is that this moron was killing too many people too visibly. Now, I don't know how your folks feel about that, but I sure as hell don't want the mortals started on a witch hunt. No telling what all they might find while they were looking for vampires."

Interest, or something less friendly, sparked across the woman's eyes, although the facial expressions that might have told the immortal something more precise had been etched down by time. The slight twitch of reaction was too small, too quickly controlled, to do him much good.

The eternal youngster snorted, a surprisingly human sound. "So we should let you live because you were only taking out our trash for us?"

"Unless you're killing people, rather than simply drinking from them, I'm not here to kill you. Yet." The black man watched their startlement and decided it had been far too long since someone thwarted these two. A slow, nastily amused smile spread across his lips as he concluded that this time he was working _pro bono publico_ as it were.

"You? Kill us?" The Amerindian vampire considered him thoughtfully then said, "You think you can, don't you? A swordsman... perhaps you could at that. Or not. So, your complaint is with the ones who make a mess?"

"I don't like your kind," he said flatly. "But no one told me that coming back from my first death made me God, so I'll let it ride unless they're stupid."

The two vampires held a discussion somehow: it was a language of precise, minute motions of cocked head or lifted eyebrow, an unhappy twist of lips or an infinitesimal nod. The youngster finally agreed aloud, "All right, then." Both of them turned to face the immortal. "You can kill the renegades. We have no wish to see a 'witch hunt' -- or worse -- ourselves."

The woman took up the discussion as smoothly as if they'd done this before, and maybe they had. "But start an indiscriminate hunt and become a target yourself."

The black man laughed softly at that. "You're fast, you're strong, and you're nasty -- but I can hunt in daylight. Keep that in mind."

"We know," the youngster assured him. He didn't smile, only bared teeth and fangs unpleasantly. "And we can hire help. The renegades you may kill without starting a war between our kinds. Remember your limits, swordsman."

And they were both gone in a rush of air and darkness as if the night had scooped them up, or the wind. The black man shook his head in disgust and turned towards his bike. "Fucking showoffs."

He smiled to himself as he mounted the bike, however. He hadn't known the vampires even had rules about killing so recklessly, or that they knew what to think about immortals. All told, he thought that conversation had probably told him more than it had told them. He would have plenty to think about at the monastery tonight, and, if nothing else, the streets were slightly safer than they had been at sunset. He'd take what he could get, and tomorrow, once again, he'd try for more. It might not be what most immortals did with a long life, but for now, this suited him just fine.  


_~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~_


End file.
